Pink

There is more than one artist with this name: 1) Pink was a late 1980s new wave band from Japan. Members included Yutaka Fukuoka (vocals/guitar), hajime okano (vocals/bass), Atsunobu Yakabe (vocals/drums), Hoppy Kamiyama (vocal/keyboards), Steve Eto (vocals/percussion), and Hidehiro Shibuya (vocals/guitars) Osamu Sakasai (vocals/guitars). 2) Pink was an alias of Manfred Linzner, a computer game music composer/demoscene artist & co-creator of the AHX tracker format.

2) Pink was an alias of Manfred Linzner, a computer game music composer/demoscene artist & co-creator of the AHX tracker format.

(Not to be confused with pop artist P!nk. If you're here due to the pop artist, do last.fm and yourself a favor, Fix your artist tags.)

1.) The band Pink formed as a collaboration between ???-????? (Vibratones) member Yutaka Fukuoka and Hero member Hoppy Kamiyama. The two were joined by hajime okano, Kamiyama's fellow bandmember in the rock group ?????? (Gun Blast). Atsunobu Yakabe, Osamu Skasai, and percussionist and former model Steve Eto rounded out the lineup.

The group released the singles ??? (Drops of Sand) and ??????????? (PRIVATE STORY) in 1984. Pink self-produced their first self-titled album, Pink, May 25, 1985 under their "MOON Records" label.

The band went on to release ??? (Child of Light) in February 1986 and two more albums, PSYCHO-DELICIOUS and CYBER in 1987.

At this point, the growing popularity of Pink caught the attention of major record labels. Hoppy Kamiyama would land a two-album deal with Toshiba EMI. The deal would end badly for Kamiyama after production of his critically acclaimed work was cut due to low sales. He would then go on to form his own labels, God Mountain (named for the English translation of his Japanese surname) and God Ocean.

It was the British record label, RIME that produced PSYCHO-DELICIOUS. The English-language single, ??? (Soul Flight) was also released under RIME.

Sony Epic produced the 1987 album DAYDREAM TRACKS.

The band returned to independent production in 1988 for FINAL MIX. In 1989, Osamu Sakasai took over on guitars for RED & BLUE.

Each member of the band was an established musician in their own right and they continued to work on solo projects while involved with Pink. Finally, Steve Eto left the band in 1988 to pursue his own interests, leading to the eventual collapse of Pink and the end of production of new material.

Pink continues to tour today with lineups consisting of varying members of the original group as well as support artists. In March 2002, they released a greatest hits compilation The Best of Pink.

Former members of Pink pursue solo careers and have since joined groups such as Halo, Quadraphonics, Rael, Flesh, PUGS, Ontj, and ??????? (Madame Piranha). Kamiyama continues to run God Mountain and God Ocean.

2.) Germany-based Manfred Linzner writes music mainly for handheld consoles. He worked in-house at Vicarious Visions.

His work has appeared on such games as the 2000 PC version of Tomb Raider and Spider-Man, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, and the Iridion series of games. His firm Shin'en provides audio outsourcing services for Nintendo WiiWare and Nintendo DS games. They also offer freelance music services for web sites and developers.

Linzner has cited Vince DiCola, composer of the 1986 Transformers The Movie soundtrack, as one of his influences.